Chimney Fire

[Healdav]

Las Wedensday evening I lit our open wood fire for the first time this year, and about an hour later noticed a neighbour standing and staring at my house. He waved to me to come out and when I got to him he said, "Did you know your chimney is on fire?" There were flames coming out of the chimney.

I called the fire service who arrived in about ten minutes (we are in a small village in the forest and while the overall village has a volunteer service it is based and manned from a different part of the village a couple of kilometres away).

The turnout was, 1 hydraulic ladder and lift with cage, 1 Pump, 1 emergency tender. These were followed by a mobile intensive care unit and two police cars to block off the road.

I seem to remember that when I trained in the early 1960s the callout for that was one appliance. Someone climbed up on to the roof with a stirrup pump and a bucket of water.

Is my memory defective and what would the turnout be today?

[Dangly1]

Unless there is a specific reason for that pre determined attendance based on a previous risk visit or risk info then you're right one fire appliance is still the normal resource you'd get sent, pretty sure this is standard across the country.

Some control operators do use a feature called 9eye (think that's the correct term) which uses video calling from a member of public on scene to get a better idea of what's going on, they may have added the aerial appliance thinking the roof was involved. 

With regards to the mobile intensive care unit (whatever one of those is!) and the police this will likely have been requested by the incident commander once they had got there.

[Messyshaw]

What the hell is a Mobile Intensive Care Unit?

Hand cream? Moisturiser?..........🤔

[Matt]

I do believe that Healdav isn't based in the UK, a mobile intensive care unit I suspect its an ambulance.

Typically 1 pump for chimney around here, if station is an aerial station they may self mobilise it knowing the area and making use of it, if its called in as a house it could attract up to 3 pumps its classed as persons reported.  

Don't think many carry stirrup pumps now, tends to be a HR attached to chimney rods.

[Becile]

Still got good old stirrup pumps..but not from top down...let the steam do the work bottom up....oh and a bit of fairy liquid (breaks the surface tension and allows betrer penetration of the soot)

[TandA]

Definitely 1 pump attendance unless it’s a thatched property.  Depends on where in the flue the issue is, how active it is and whether the fire in the hearth is still alight.  If it is, then put the fire in the hearth out slowly using a small quantity of water from a jug, the aim being to produce a burst of steam up the chimney.  Often this can be enough to deal with a small fire low down in the flue.  Then, if needed, use a stirrup pump and a bucket of water. HR is too much water in 99% of cases. Only once have I had to resort to using a bigger volume of water very carefully applied from the top and that was due to an obstruction in the flue that we couldn’t get rods to pass, probably explaining why the soot had built up in the first place.

Not heard of the fairy trick, might give that a go next time.

[Messyshaw]

I didnt get a great deal of chimney jobs during my time in London. They were mostly confined to the suburbs, but when they did occur in the central London area, they could be interesting.

The most complicated was in a block like the one in the photo in Kensington with 6 or 7 floors with very winding chimneys. The job started as a 1 pump PDA, but went to a 4 pump fire as we had difficult access to the roof and very hot walls on every floor, not helped by at least two sets of chimney rods that became stuck and consumed, somewhat adding to the fuel !!!

But my favourite was not far away to a flat by a famous opera singer. Her flat had filled with smoke as some snotty yuppie types lit up an open fire in a hearth in a flat below without getting the flue swept. The opera singer was anxious about her voice but the dinner party guests thought it was a 'right old hoot' to have five firefighters providing the finale entertainment to their poncey dinner party. They honestly didnt give a sh1te about their neighbour as they laughed and took the p1ss out of her and us.

The odd thing is this little job reached a national publication. The host of the dinner party was one Annabel Mary Dibdin Heseltine - now a Telegraph journalist, but also the daughter of Tory Govt Minister (Lord) Michael Heseltine.  Private Eye magazine rightly pointed out how embarrassing it was for Mr Heseltine for his daughter to be lighting up an open fire within a smoke free zone - especially as Daddy was Environment Minister at the time. How Private Eye found out about the job remains a mystery 🤔

 

[C_Iain]

We still do chimney fires fairly regularly. The PDA is usually 2 pumps, but I’ve been to a few where control have classed the incident as a house fire due to smoke and/or heat and tipped out 3 pumps and a flexi.
All our pumps still carry chimney rods and stirrup pump, they’ll be our first plan of attack for most jobs and we’ll try and deal with it from the hearth, just as @TandA has described. If we’re not getting anywhere with the rods, we’ll consider attacking from the top down with a HR, but this will need a make pumps 3 (if not already 3 in attendance) and a safe working at height system set up.
That being said, the neighbouring service that we regularly work cross-border with are now making up for an aerial appliance rather than setting up a working at height system and, having recently put our shiny new ALP on the run, I suspect we’ll start to do the same.

[Becile]

20 hours ago, TandA said:

Not heard of the fairy trick, might give that a go next time.

Works on any class A fire 😉just think of sugar soap on wallpaper...thats how it works to improve water effiency

[TandA]

Cheers @Becile.  Not sure I engaged my brain there.  The obvious of it being a wetting agent flew (or should that be flue?) right by me, even though your post said as much.  

[Keith]

Looks suspiciously like something straight out of the Cafs manual @Becile. 

[Becile]

@Keith could be...my past life never leaves me...lol

[BurtMacklin]

Not all pumping appliances carry chimney gear in london anymore, combine that with a potential lack of crew and officer experience with chimney fires and zero training provided on how to actually use the chimney gear if you happen to have it and I’m sure you can imagine the outcome as a hose reel hastily gets squirted up or down the chimney. 

[Messyshaw]

14 hours ago, BurtMacklin said:

 a hose reel hastily gets squirted up ....... the chimney. 

That's one for the sprog I guess, as it sounds a bit messy!!!!🤔

I am surprised the chimney gear is not carried anymore, even just the rods (with a HR connection). I live on the outskirts of London and we get a few people still having open fires - much to the angst of Mayor Khan 

[BurtMacklin]

I don’t think it’s officially been taken off the trucks, but if you send it away defective you’ll be lucky to get it back. maybe that’s just my experience from my past two stations, however even with the kit there is still the lack of training and experience in using it and tackling chimney fires. 

[Rory-495]

Have never had to use it, but we have rods and a hosereel attachment. We also have a pip that you can put into the chimney from the top of needed. We rarely get these incidents but have trained/reminded on their use anyway just in case, that's all that's needed

[Highlander]

Chimney rods and a stirrup pump. Attachment on the rods to take the end of the stirrup hose up the chimney. 

Pretty sure our stirrup pump is older than @Messyshaw  and probably just as opinionated 😁 

if we need roof access, then its make up for the aerial. 

[Messyshaw]

2 minutes ago, Highlander said:

 

Pretty sure our stirrup pump is older than @Messyshaw  and probably just as opinionated 😁 

🤣🤣😘

I am definitely as leaky as a stirrup pump at my age 😉

[Br9mp81]

as long as your still pumping!

[Healdav]

On 26/10/2023 at 15:42, Messyshaw said:

🤣🤣😘

I am definitely as leaky as a stirrup pump at my age 😉

I know what you mean.